Most Interesting Period in History
 

What are your favourite periods in history to learn about?

Here are a few of mine:

Caesar - Civil War - Julio-Claudian Dynasty (Mid-1st century BC- Mid-1st century AD). It might have the greatest mix of great benefactors (Caesar, Augustus) and psychos (Caligula, Nero) in such a short period, ever. I also found the early deterioration of the Senate to be interesting as well.

Constantine - Theodosius I (4th century AD). The influence that this century had on the shaping of the Middle Ages is pretty staggering. Reducing the Senate to nothing, adopting Christianity as the state religion, and the influx of Barbarians, which would ultimately lead to the fall of the Roman Empire.

Classical Period (Late-5th century BC - Early-4th Century BC)
Definitely the most interesting period in terms of military history: Persian Wars, Peloponnesian War, Philip II, and of course, Alexander the Great. Plenty of political and social strife as well between and among the poleis and leagues. And on top of this the fall of "Greece" from power and the foundations Alexander set for the Hellenistic world.

my own :)

:laughing: 2nd place?

Probably Tudor England, but I'm interested in all kinds of history. History of cults is a particular favorite, although it doesn't count as a period.

But Tudor England reads like a scandalous tabloid almost, and I love it

i would probably love to live in 30s Chicago during the prohibition and been a liquor smuggler

also pre-WW2 Shanghai, China - it was really happening then

19th Century Ireland and America.

Don't you mean 20s Chicago? Prohibition was mostly during the 20s.

For me, ancient Sumer has always been fascinating. I mean it's just so damn old and I find it absolutely mind bending to contemplate a time where basically the only cities in the world were in this one area.

mid 20s to early 30s, I meant

I love the time period involving ancient Greece. The philosophy and science at that time was just unbelievable.

I'm actually taking a course in Ancient Greek Science right now. Really interesting stuff, although it's pretty funny how off-base they were on most things.

I'd have to agree with you OP. Anything to do with The Roman Empire fascinates me.

Sooooo, boring. What's wrong with you, people? **** human history. So short and almost predictable.

Most interesting periods in history:

-Hadeon eon, 4.6 Billion years ago, the formation of Earth and the first living creatures.

- Paleozoic Era, Cambrian Period, 542 Million Years ago. Diversification of life; hard-bodied creatures emerge.

-Mesozoic Era, Triassic Period, 251 mya. First mammals

-Mesozoic Era, Cretaceous Period, 146 mya. The K-T Impact: the end of dinosaurs; mass extinction.

-The time of the invention of the wheel.

Menstruating T-rex :yikes:

i prefer the era when we were still primordial ooze

Now is pretty cool, the internet age that is.

That would be near the middle of the Hadean Eon, 4.2 b.y.ago, to about 3.8 billion y.a, in the Archean Eon...give or take

^^ok

Some off the top of my head:

French Revolution
Soviet Revolution
WWI - WWII - Middle Europe
Spanish Exploration of the world
Plague epidemics in Northern Europe
1960s California
Ancient China
Civil War America

In terms of human history (~2M years or so), I'd have to say the Enlightenment is extremely interesting to me. I really only know the basics of the Enlightenment, and that's just the tip of the iceberg there. All the new schools of thought and philosophical revelations are just so fascinating to me.

Also, World War One is by far the most interesting event to have occurred during the 20th century, to me at least. The fact that it was a springboard for new types of warfare and weaponry (poison gas, shell-fire, trenches, tanks, etc.) really sets it apart from every other war that has taken place before and after it. WWI is a subject that I'm fairly knowledgeable in, having written 2 academic papers on topics to do with the war - one on life in the trenches and the other on the Battle of Vimy Ridge.

Now, in terms of history before the existence of humans, dinosaurs are interesting to me as well, but I don't know enough about them :(

I'm surprised noone's answered the European Renaissance, the time when civilization (well, some of it) rose from and challenged the oppressive conventions of the medieval times. You got great artists and thinkers like Michaelangelo, Leonardo DaVinci and Galileo Galilei who challenged the geocentric world view. America was discovered and settled, the protestant reformation took place, ehr .. Classical music came a long way etc. :)

Leonardo is by far my favourite individual to learn about in history. He was so far ahead of his time. You can't forget Machiavelli either.

The Renaissance is pretty interesting to me. Also the Muslim Empire golden age preceding it... I love the contrast between that and the Dark Ages.

You're not :p:

I'm pretty curious about Egypt's golden age, whenever that may have been.

You know, there's an ancient Chinese curse: "May you live in interesting times..."

prehistory of course!

upper paleolithic europe is particularly interesting...

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_N-4ASXXQfU...00/Lascaux.jpg

Ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome are extremely interesting for me. Also the times of Genghis Khan and the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia.

In terms of simply a span of time, I would go with the 1860's. The amount of things that happened in the world at that time, it is staggering. There was the American Civil War, most people are aware of that. There were the Prussian Wars in Europe, against Denmark 1864, Austria 1866 and France 1870. Then there was the Taiping Rebellion in China, the most bloody civil war of all time. All these wars are interesting in themselves, but that they all happened at the same time is just insane. Throw in the Moghul Uprising in India in 1858, and you have some of the most important incidents in all regions, happening in the same 15 year period. How can that be?

I'd say 1890s-1920s. A lot of interesting avante-garde stuff going on.. modernism! In 1913 alone you had both the Armory show in NYC which showed off the Fauvist, Cubist, and Impressionist art coming from Europe to the American audience (pretty funny to read about), and also the L'Arte dei Rumori. In 1898 the first popular Sans Serif font was produced, Akzidenz-Grotesk, and that sort of changed things. It went on to influence Miedinger's creation Helvetica. You may have heard of it. Also, in 1919 you had the opening of the Bauhaus school.

I'm more of a modern man, the industrial revolution would be a great time to live in as well as the Tudors have always been a rather interesting period in history as I did it a least four times in my studies back at school, literally had to remember all Henry VIII's wifes, how they died etc. but the Spanish Armada and Elizabeth I was the more interesting..

But yeah Industrial Revolution period for me :)

French Revolution woulda been interesting for me also

Not to mention all the early avant-garde music emerging in the early 20th century, with Arnold Schoenberg, his Second Viennese School, and his pupils Anton Webern and Alban Berg. Some great stuff happening there.

I don't know if I'd want to have lived during the time of Robespierre and his Reign of Terror. That's actually the origin of the word "terrorism" and it's definition. Terrorism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I find pre-roman briton to be a very interesting subject. Also the ancient ancient history of the area around china, koreas, japan. Migration in those areas is mad.

Anything to do with migration or the creation of new cultures and societies is interesting. That's also why I find ancient greece so interesting, because of the great conceptual development that we still can learn so much from today.

I'd have fled after the execution of Danton. But Robespierre fascinates me no end.

Ohh yes. I should have went into more detail instead of just mentioning L'arte dei Rumori. I got carried away with the design stuff.

20th century Europe in my opinion. The centerstage of two world wars (in which France and Britain stop their squabbling that had been going on for god knows how long in order to work together [an American point of view, if that's incorrect please forgive me]), reconstruction, the clashing of contrasting ideologies, revolutions right and left and the breakdown of the USSR to name a few interesting traits.

Civil War America, WWII Europe, Vietnam War.

I've always found the roman empire fascinating.
Especially everything before 1000 ad.